Derek Ainslie Jackson,

OBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

, DFC, AFC, FRS (23 June 1906 – 20 February 1982) was a British physicist.

Biography

Derek Jackson was born in 1906, the son of Welsh businessman Sir Charles Jackson. He was educated at

Rugby School Rugby School is a Public school (United Kingdom), private boarding school for pupils aged 13–18, located in the town of Rugby, Warwickshire in England. Founded in 1567 as a free grammar school for local boys, it is one of the oldest independ ...

and

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any ...

, where he took a first in part I of the natural sciences

tripos TRIPOS (''TRIvial Portable Operating System'') is a computer operating system. Development started in 1976 at the Computer Laboratory of Cambridge University and it was headed by Dr. Martin Richards. The first version appeared in January 1978 a ...

and graduated with honours in 1927. Jackson showed early promise in the field of spectroscopy under the guidance of Professor Frederick Lindemann, making the first quantitative determination of a nuclear magnetic spin using

atomic spectroscopy In physics, atomic spectroscopy is the study of the electromagnetic radiation absorbed and emitted by atoms. Since unique elements have unique emission spectra, atomic spectroscopy is applied for determination of elemental compositions. It can ...

to measure the

hyperfine structure In atomic physics, hyperfine structure is defined by small shifts in otherwise degenerate electronic energy levels and the resulting splittings in those electronic energy levels of atoms, molecules, and ions, due to electromagnetic multipole int ...

caesium Caesium (IUPAC spelling; also spelled cesium in American English) is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Cs and atomic number 55. It is a soft, silvery-golden alkali metal with a melting point of , which makes it one of only f ...

. His scientific research at Oxford did not, however, interfere with his other great passion –

steeplechase SteepleChase Records is a jazz record company and label based in Copenhagen, Denmark. SteepleChase was founded in 1972 by Nils Winther, who was a student at Copenhagen University at the time. He began recording concerts at Jazzhus Montmartre, ...

riding – which led him from the

foxhunting Fox hunting is an activity involving the tracking, chase and, if caught, the killing of a fox, normally a red fox, by trained foxhounds or other scent hounds. A group of unarmed followers, led by a "master of foxhounds" (or "master of houn ...

field to his first ride in the

Grand National The Grand National is a National Hunt horse race held annually at Aintree Racecourse in Aintree, Merseyside, England. First run in 1839, it ...

of 1935. A keen huntsman, he took up the sport again after the war, riding in two more Nationals after the war, the last time when he was 40 years old. In World War II, Jackson distinguished himself in the RAF, making an important scientific contribution to Britain's air defences and to the bomber offensive. He flew more than a thousand hours as a navigator, many of them in combat in night-fighters, with No. 604 (County of Middlesex) Squadron based at

RAF Middle Wallop Middle Wallop is a village in the civil parish of Nether Wallop in Hampshire, England, on the A343 road. At the 2011 Census the population was included in the civil parish of Over Wallop. The village has a public house, The George Inn, and ...

. He was decorated with the DFC, AFC and

. This war record stands in contrast to his stated desire at the war's inception to keep Britain out of fighting Germany. For the rest of his life, Jackson, appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1947, lived as a

tax exile A tax exile is a person who leaves a country to avoid the payment of income tax or other taxes. The term refers to an individual who already owes money to the tax authorities or wishes to avoid being liable in the future for taxation at what they ...

in Ireland, France and Switzerland. He continued his spectroscopic work in France at the

Centre national de la recherche scientifique The French National Centre for Scientific Research (, , CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,637 staff, including 11,137 tenured researchers, 13,415 eng ...

, and was made a

chevalier de la Légion d'honneur The National Order of the Legion of Honour ( ), formerly the Imperial Order of the Legion of Honour (), is the highest and most prestigious French national order of merit, both military and Civil society, civil. Currently consisting of five cl ...

. A "rampant bisexual", Jackson was married six times, and also lived for three years with Angela Culme-Seymour, the half-sister of Janetta Woolley, one of his wives. The others included a daughter of

Augustus John Augustus Edwin John (4 January 1878 – 31 October 1961) was a Welsh painter, draughtsman, and etcher. For a time he was considered the most important artist at work in Britain: Virginia Woolf remarked that by 1908 the era of John Singer Sarg ...

, Pamela Mitford (one of the Mitford sisters), a princess, and several femmes fatale including

Barbara Skelton Barbara Olive Skelton (26 June 1916 – 27 January 1996) was an English memoirist, novelist and socialite. Background Skelton was born at The Croft, Ellington Road, Taplow, Buckinghamshire, elder daughter of Eric George Skelton, who had been a M ...

(in whose obituary in the Independent is noted her remark that it was "not for love that (she) married Professor Jackson", he being identified as "the millionaire son of the founder of the ''

News of the World The ''News of the World'' was a weekly national "Tabloid journalism#Red tops, red top" Tabloid (newspaper format), tabloid newspaper published every Sunday in the United Kingdom from 1843 to 2011. It was at one time the world's highest-selling ...

''").

Books and publications

References

;Secondary sources * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Jackson, Derek 1906 births 1982 deaths Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge Knights of the Legion of Honour Fellows of the Royal Society British bisexual men Officers of the Order of the British Empire Recipients of the Air Force Cross (United Kingdom) Recipients of the Distinguished Flying Cross (United Kingdom) Royal Air Force personnel of World War II Spectroscopists 20th-century English LGBTQ people Fellows of the American Physical Society People educated at Rugby School